coming war on china at this time. i really felt liberated as a journalist when i was getting to the truth as i was that's what this job. under serious skies a bomb shattered monument towards destructive powers yet amid the ruins the defiant still resist and somehow survived. the people in power investigates how the suburb of damascus has refused to crumble under the might of assad's army the job are one of two at this time on al-jazeera. a hastily called summit muslim leaders declare that east jerusalem is palestine's

capital and call on the world to join the. blogs obama you want your life why headquarters here in doha also coming up north korea and trade relations are on the agenda is the south korean and chinese leaders meet. all sort of the round of syrian peace talks is underway in geneva but the two sides are actually talking. tough fight on home turf why indian prime minister narendra modi has been forced to take the lead in a regional election campaign. good have you with us muslim leaders have rejected u.s. president donald trump's recognition of jerusalem as israel's capital and called on countries around the world to do the same the fifty seven member organization of islamic cooperation denounce the american action as dangerous and

a violation of international law mohammed reports. of the hastily convened meting of the organization of islamic cooperation is to move members at a compromise the palestinian state with occupied is jerusalem was its capital there was strong condemnation is two for both the u.s. and israel the palestinian president mahmoud abbas declared that palestinians called no longer accept the u.s. as a mediator in the middle east peace process in his strongest statement yet since donald trump's announcement abbas called the move a line and odds that you and to take over the peace process we didn't want the united states chose to lose its role in eligibility as a mediator and not to have a role in the political process we will not accept any american role in the political process from now on the u.s. is biased to israel that is our position this is a major crime that requires us to come out with decisive decisions that protect the identity of jerusalem until we end the israeli occupation of the state of palestine

the summit was convened by the turkish president through egypt taib it on a self-proclaimed champion of the palestinian calls heloise dood. starman killer although i would like to call all nations around the globe to respect international law to rise up and recognize jerusalem as the occupied capital city of the state of palestine we will never give up on our demand for a free and sovereign palestinian state the capital of which is jerusalem and as islamic countries we condemn the violence of israeli soldiers we are palestinian brothers and sisters protesting the latest decision of the united states and the ones hopes of uniting muslim leaders behind a top final statement from the meeting was awarded in the and the organization of islamic countries also adopted the palestinian course and status of jerusalem as its core mission also at the meeting working of the love jordan the lebanese president michel on the middle of qatar ship to mean being home adult any and there

any in president hassan rouhani they called on muslim nations to unite to defend the rights of palestinians i mean between is it isn't call mother giving up the art when you reach rock bottom of the only way you can go is trying to declare ration might be what the palestinian cause needed to come back into the limelight i see hope in the future. in a sign of cracks in the unity of the muslim world so debbie and egypt were presented at that are literally genea level and took a back seat in the proceedings in comments seem to be aimed at soda iranian president hassan rouhani said the only reason tom dad recognized jerusalem as the capital of israel was because some in the region was seeking to establish ties to israel donald trump some also been for the last week prompted a massive all pouring off in the muslim world tens of thousands of people took to the streets to denounce israel and express their solidarity with the palestinians

muslim leaders today here humble opportunity to do the same but everything from here on in depends on how the agreement they reach here gets implemented mohammed at the wall does it or stumble well in washington the state department responded to the icy declaration by insisting that it will continue to work as a mediator in the israeli palestinian conflict. as you all well know the president is committed to this peace process as committed as he has ever been and that has not changed that type of rhetoric that we heard has prevented peace in the past and it's not necessarily surprising to us that those types of things would be said we remain hard at work in putting together our plan we believe that that will benefit both the israeli and the palestinian people well on the ground protests against the american move all continue in several parts of the occupied palestinian territories at least one hundred twenty people were wounded across the west bank after israeli

forces fired tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets hoda abdel-hamid has the latest from ramallah. well certainly the anger. disappointment disillusionment and this really a lack of hope that anything will get better any time soon now if you ask people how they felt about the speech of mahmoud abbas earlier today they said it was the strongest they heard to him since a while but they were also disappointed that the final communique thinking that that did not go far enough that there's no concrete steps now what people are feeling is that. they fear that eventually despite all the efforts of mahmoud abbas to go to the u.n. to go to the i.c.c. to exclude the u.s. from any future peace negotiations if indeed they start at any time soon they fear that they would be pressure at some point and that he might have to backtrack

people say the words are all good but we've heard so many good words in the past so many promises so many. agreements signed and so many times where peace was hailed as big as being there coming soon well none of that happened twenty five years of efforts have gone down the drain so at the moment they don't really believe in anything. president trunk's decision to relocate the american embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem is without president the international community does not recognize the contested city as israel's capital as all official reports from west jerusalem the latest u.s. plan might also face difficulties on the ground. which is no more than a barren piece of land in west jerusalem but this could be the sate of the controversial new american embassy it was earmarked in the last days of the reagan administration and one thousand nine year lease was signed for rent of one dollar

a year under the last few days what has been going on here the americans insist this is not guaranteed to be the form of the controversial embassy. since the us embassy bombings in east africa in one thousand nine hundred eight the security rules for u.s. embassies can be placed i've changed significantly if this was to be the site in jerusalem roads would have to be closed or diverted parks would have to because other lines would have to be acquired making other sites potentially much more attractive. then there is the difficult question of ownership several palestinian families say the land of west or islam is theirs they have the documents to prove it and they still hope they will get it back the politely refused their requests to speak on camera one expert says the u.s. simply doesn't care about legalities i don't know if they are looking for a right or not. it's a pole. they don't care if they have the right that they have it's illegal or not

legal i don't think they are because what they are doing here recently the u.s. has a significant presence in jerusalem already it has a large modern administrative building high on a hill in west jerusalem and there's the existing consulate itself also in west jerusalem either could simply be renamed as an embassy but it seems the u.s. is reluctant to do that acute buying land or confiscating land has been ongoing but now by the americans they come here to tell you i would confiscate i am taught to control i am told to make thoughtful in other words on your own territory this is the end this is the the humanization. state department says it could take years for a final state to be identified for what to start for america to open its embassy plowing through the objection of many across the world and here to alan fischer al jazeera western. let's move to asia pacific now a south korea's president mungy and is in beijing to hold talks with his chinese

counterpart xi jinping moon is hoping to repair relations after the u.s. deployment of the anti missile defense system and get china now the threat from north korea will spin high on the agenda as the world trade kathy novak is live for us in seoul obviously cathy you know we've heard that this trip is all about repairing the relationship but also very important how to work together when dealing with north korea. well precisely these two leaders have met before on the sidelines of international summits but this is the first time the president minging and is making an official visit to china and he will be meeting with xi jinping will be a state dinner he's there for four days and as you say it's all part of repairing this strained relationship very important so the two can work together on north korea and also because of trade china is crucial to south korea's economy and to give you an idea just how crucial the biggest delegation of business leaders to ever travel with

a south korean president on an overseas trip is traveling with on this visit. it's a decades old relationship that hit a bumpy patch and says his first visit to china as president will be an opportunity to mend fences reasons to the biggest goal in focus of my visit this time will be rebuilding mutual trust between south korea and china. china is south korea's largest trading partner and some businesses recently got a taste of what happens when chinese customers stop spending. as north korea ramped up its nuclear weapon and missile program seoul went ahead with the installation of the u.s. missile defense system known as stad and china got extremely angry seeing the system's powerful radars as a security threat it retaliated with an unofficial boycott against tourism and businesses it was a very rude a wake up call for a major corporations in south korea. to work. on china's economy is special.

tourism with china will not be a long term solution some have begun diversifying this traditional korean restaurant expanded its selection to include hollow meat attracting visitors from southeast asia and the middle east. we get customers from all over the world including africa and south america many of my customers are business people looking for a whole lot of food the south korean government wants to expand cooperation with southeast asian countries but china is unlikely to be replaced anytime soon but china will remain for a long long time south korea's lifeline but this is hardly a one way relationship south korea is one of china's top three trading partners in october the two countries put their differences over thad aside effectively agreeing to disagree going some way to restoring relations and allowing them to

better address other common issues. mainly the threat from north korea the other issue likely to be high on the agenda during moon's visit south korea wants china to impose harsher sanctions against the government in pyongyang china prefers a proposal that would see south korea and the united states scaling back joint military exercises in exchange for north korea agreeing to freeze its nuclear weapons development it will likely take much more than this summit to find agreement on that there's a lot of talking to be done a little if we put the politics to one side one of the two things that the countries want to talk about is how they're going to work better their trade relationship economically while that's right so as i mentioned china is very crucial for south korea and south korea and certainly want to see that dispute over fad be put behind these two countries when china

retaliated on officially against south korea's decision to allow the roll out of this the system what happened was group tours stopped coming to south korea and that was quite noticeable in the tourism sector if you go into the tourism areas of seoul you'll notice that apart from korea and the other language that's widely spoken is mandarin because people really do want to attract those chinese visitors on the other hand south korean businesses that invested in china were also hit one large south korean company lot who was involved in giving land to the south korean defense ministry for a system in china was very angry about that and it caused some of the stores of law to be closed in china so hoping to put this all past the dispute so well for them but we'll leave it there and continue to follow vince as the two leaders talk things over. let's move now to the u.n.

where the special envoy for syria has russia to convince the syrian government that there is no time to lose on reaching a peace deal speaking to a swished television channel steffen them a store and said failure to make peace quickly could lead to a crack in taishan of syria russian president vladimir putin to push the. government to accept that there has to be a new constitution and new elections david chaytor has more from geneva. it's the eighth round of negotiations of the syrian delegations have still not met face to face at the same table after nearly seven years of war and deaths numbered in the hundreds of thousands of peace appears no closer to the syrian government's team of negotiators in geneva refused to go into direct talks while the opposition is calling for a syria without president bashar al assad. the bombs are still falling on the besieged damascus suburb of eastern goten it's

a so-called deescalation zone held by rebels four hundred thousand civilians are trapped beneath the bombardment the united nations say they're facing a complete catastrophe. syria's opposition arranged to skype call to a mother and her children inside the enclave with delegates from press in the swiss capital on wednesday the video link was far from perfect so the message was powerful. it's unfair and unjust for us to have to store instead of bread we beg you to break this. i look through the window and i see the bombings in front of me i see the fire that is being showered down. what a disappointment what frustration what a shock what a tragedy what a catastrophe we're living today in the twenty first century i asked the family if they had a message for the delegates in geneva and the hour. side world. we are calling for

peace but we will not concede we will not give up the sacrifices we have made with the blood of our martyrs the russian president vladimir putin announced mission accomplished in syria this week and the partial withdrawal of his troops but millions of refugees cannot think of returning to a country whose government is starving its own children to death. david chase to al jazeera geneva. well still ahead here on al-jazeera and the british conservative m.p.'s one to reason may or defeat on the promises to make the bricks in negotiations even more complicated. and why a special election in one u.s. state has appended politics.

through tranquil the rave you can you. can feel intense in its initial gondola. welcome back will start in the levant and western parts of asia where it is looking quite at the moment not serious indifferent precipitation temperatures struggling down kazakstan maximum of minus one degrees fine around the caspian sea double figures for terra bite that highs of nineteen he saw the mediterranean also looking pretty quiet at the moment for beirut temperatures still getting into the twenty's rather cool with own jerusalem at fourteen degrees heading down into the arabian peninsula we've got twenty four degrees as a high into how but there is just a chance of the odd shower and so it could be cloudy at times but otherwise looking fine so that dropping out of the winces out welcome here mecca still coming at thirty two degrees heading through into friday it should be a generally dry but turtle bit more breeze picking up from the south this time so

temperatures here not too bad twenty five degrees again from abu dhabi across into southern portions of africa for much of south africa weather conditions looking dry and fine for botswana namibia to looking fine but we have got showers for the coast of mozambique east coast of madagascar two and then as you move up through parts of zimbabwe into zambia and angola we've seen some downpours here and lyceum ice and temperature into soccer of twenty seven degrees celsius. the weather sponsored by qatar peace. you are making a very pointed remarks where on line the main u.s. response to drug use and the drug trade over the last fifty years has been the criminal mind or if you join us on saying no evil person just wakes up in the morning and say i want to cover the world in darkness this is a dialogue and that could be was leading to some of the confusion i like about people saying they don't actually know what's going on join the colobus conversation at this time on al-jazeera.

welcome back you're watching or just their arms the whole robin a reminder of our top stories with them leaders have rejected u.s. president donald trump's recognition of jerusalem as israel's capital and called on countries around the world to do the same the fifty seven member organization of the islamic cooperation council denounced the action as dangerous and a violation of international law south korea's president when jay is in beijing to hold talks with his chinese counterpart the threat from north korea will be high on the agenda was also looking to repair relations after the u.s. deployment of an anti missile system and get china. and u.n.

special envoy for syria stepped into the store and has russia to convince the syrian government that there is no time to lose on reaching a peace deal that historic russian president vladimir putin to push for solace arts government to accept that there has to be a new constitution a new elections. indian prime minister narendra modi is back on the campaign trail as voters go to the polls in his home state of gujarat moodys b j p party has controlled the state to twenty two years but is facing a surprisingly strong challenge from role gandhi's opposition congress party. has more from the state capital of the bot. not long ago many thought this would be an easy win for the b j p but suddenly this race is becoming very contentious there has been rumblings of discontent though from the general population of the past year and the former protests and agitations and those that have been showing their discontent have mostly been from the rural community which makes up about half of

the voting bank and this became apparent in the phase one of the elections on december ninth where there were us in the turnout of voters that the b j p had expected so suddenly the congress party has spose ing is posing a strong challenge to the establishment what the congress party has done right for one thing is that its new president raul gandhi seen as setting up a campaign that's resonated with much of the disenfranchised public and in addition to that he's managed to cobble together an alliance of representatives from the tribal groups from the lower caste population from low level traders rural representatives and i other groups that were seen as being unhappy with the current economics and developments of this state a loss for and around the would be a personal insult to him he was chief minister for thirteen years in the state and

touted the good drought state the economic model as a key are at the heart of his campaign to become prime minister here. well french president promising joint military action against armed groups in this region of africa early next year he's been hosting a summit with five african nations that include mali chad a bikini faster and more taney and saudi arabia is pledging one hundred eighteen million dollars and the u.a.e. has promised thirty five million to boost a regional security force known as g five. the french soldiers were deployed to confront al qaeda linked fighters in mali the threat has spread. at a conference in paris french president emmanuel was joined by german chancellor angela merkel calling on regional and international leaders to support the so-called g. five held force in

a four game yet again only to win the war against terrorism in this house then and it's in full swing there are attacks every day there are states that are today threatened and there is a real presence of terrorists as. the g five force was launched in bamako mali in july intended to deal with new armed groups organized crime and human trafficking but it has struggled to become a viable force. made up of soldiers from mali booking a fast mauritania and chad the force will concentrate initially on some shared border regions it's intended to grow to a five thousand strong army by march in its infancy though the force remains short of troops and funding. as far as we are concerned of the g five said we know that our time is running out we realize that with everything that has happened in the middle east and the end of the war in syria there will be an influx

of isis fighters towards us and we don't want that. u.n. peacekeepers and regional armies have been the target of recent attacks in the vast hard to navigate style. numbers. the united. president hopes to convince. the u.k. prime minister treason may have suffered a major blow to her all followers he after m.p.'s voted in favor of a break sit measure she strongly opposed or doesn't government m.p. sided with the opposition to require a parliamentary vote on the u. case final breath to deal with the european union they had promised parliament what she called a meaningful vote on breaks it but opposed to moves to make fun vote binding it's not often that the world stops to watch what happens in a special election in the southern u.s.

state of alabama but don't choose a vote is there as a democrat for a senate seat the first time they've done that in twenty five years now doug jones won't join the senate for several weeks but particle hain reports his victory is already changing washington's political climate. it wasn't easy but it ninety years old keith williams made sure he got out to vote he said because president donald trump told him to he voted for republican candidate roy moore despite allegations more sexually assaulted multiple teenage girls four decades ago. williams doesn't believe the accusers and he doesn't mind that moore has made racist and sexist comments he seemed to agree with many of those sentiments i think black people have a great opted there's lots have they just don't realize they have a great opportunity if they would side sartre say than and try to get educated there's all kinds of black people people that do well but they live in as old

school i think everybody is against them and they're not you can keep that was ok that kind of talk is one reason a huge number of african-americans voted for democrat doug jones and his win also fueled by women like these. that were fired up by trump selection the worst could possibly happen actually happened and we have someone qualified to be leading this country democrats believe if they can win here in a deeply conservative. state with that coalition they can win everywhere. little scientist angela lewis says that might not work again i don't think democrats need to walk away from this with oh if we just get more black people and women to vote you know it's all over we can get this thing back no it's not going to be that simple they have to do something strategic and they have like i said they have to have a message to galvanize democrats as much as there are certain segments of the republican party has galvanized their base this is the third state though where democrats have

had an unexpected win leaving many to guess that if they can duplicate this get out the vote turn out and come up with a message that resonates they could take back the house and the senate in twenty team and that would dramatically increase the chances of impeachment for president . al jazeera birmingham alabama. now it's been five years since a man massacred twenty six people including twenty school children in the u.s. state of connecticut now since that attack at sandy hook elementary school several machines have taken place in the u.s. but there's been no congressional action on restricting guns she have returns he looks at the only growing debate over gun ownership. just what is the national rifle association saying here they use their media to assassinate real news they use their schools to teach children that their president is another hitler they used their movie stars and singers and comedy shows an award shows to repeat their

narrative over and over again to many it seemed like a cool for violence civil war or perhaps it was a sign that the n.r.a. was worried about historical trends until the all that is true the more guns are purchased often during democratic ministrations sales soared under president obama under president trump gun manufacturers have reported large drops of revenue you are the true friend in the white house so although that may be. so by and large a trump presidency has been bad for business which may explain the n.r.a. switch from gun advocacy to far right wing agitator but this is ministration and congress are potentially good for the n.r.a. legislative goals it's already spent more this year than it did in all of twenty sixteen lobbying congress some four point one million dollars its key aims are to convince legislators to deregulate the sale of silences and make sure all states recognize each other's concealed carry licenses the right of

a gun owner to carry their weapon covertly in public but the n.r.a. faces a complex demographic challenge the polls show consistent majorities for gun control and safety measures nonetheless gun ownership has held steady for years at around a quarter of adults. it's young people who are a particular challenge for the n.r.a. . all of the polls show they support concealed weapons under sold weapons sales they're least likely to own a gun they support sales restrictions and a national gun registry and have the least regard for the n.r.a. have different beliefs about guns and have often been the case they've lived in a world with concealed carry for their base in their entire life throughout most of the nation and they also live in a world with a lot of mass shootings defining guns rather than violence inner cities as we talked a lot about in the eighty's in the early ninety's. the n.r.a. however appears to have decided it's best course is to appeal to the extreme right

wing nationalistic and socially conservative impulses of people gun safety advocates hope this is precisely the wrong strategy to win over a new generation of gun owners. she ever time see al-jazeera. i'm so rahman these are all top stories muslim leaders have rejected us president donald trump's recognition of jerusalem as israel's capital and called on countries around the world to do the same the fifty seven member organization of islamic cooperation denounced the action as dangerous and a violation of international law while in washington the state department responded to the n.y.c. declaration by insisting that it will continue to work as a mediator in the israeli palestinian conflict. as you all well know the president is committed to this peace process as committed as he has ever been and that has not changed that type of rhetoric that we heard has prevented peace in the past and

it's not necessarily surprising to us that those types of things would be said we remain hard at work in putting together our plan we believe that that will benefit both the israeli and the palestinian people south korea's president in his in beijing to hold talks with his chinese counterpart paying the threat from north korea will be high on the agenda moon is also looking to repair relations after the u.s. deployment of an anti missile system angered china. the u.k. prime minister to resign may have suffered a major blow to her breasts it plans are to m.p.'s now only voted in favor of an amendment she strongly opposed it ensures parliament gets to vote on the final break that deal struck with the european union further complicating efforts to sever ties. it's a prestige battle for indian prime minister narendra modi as voters in his home state of goods rather cast ballots in the second phase of polling now the regional

election is taking place in a state where modi's party b j p has been in power for the past twenty two years but the opposition congress and its leader raul gandy have mounted a surprisingly strong challenge those were the headlines here on al-jazeera i'll be back with more news in thirty minutes next we have the stream to stay with us. it is a very important source of information for many people around the world when old the comrades are gone i'm still here go into areas that nobody else is going to talk to people that nobody else is talking to and bringing that story to the forefront. and i'm really could. say are long gone but the past of destruction the.